99 Cents Only’s Stock Is No Bargain

by Peter Cohan | September 19, 2011 1:48 pm

99 Cents Only Stores (NYSE:NDN[1]) stock popped 9.4% on Friday. Is it still a bargain?

99 Cents claims that it sells merchandise at or below 99.99 cents per item. By April, it operated 285 retail stores — 211 in California, 35 in Texas, 27 in Arizona and 12 in Nevada. On Friday, news emerged that Apollo Management planned to bid $22 to $24 per share for 99 Cents.

Has news of this bid taken all the upside opportunity out of investing in 99 Cents? Here are two reasons to consider an investment:

Higher sales and profits, and a decent balance sheet. 99 Cents’ sales have grown at a 6.2% annual rate over the past five years, from $1.1 billion (2007) to $1.4 billion (2011), and its net income has increased at a 64.9% annual rate, from $10 million (2007) to $74 million (2011), yielding a slim 5% net margin. It has less than $1 million in debt, and its cash has grown at a 14.4% annual rate, from $118 million (2007) to $202 million (2011).

99 Cents is earning more than its cost of capital – and it’s improving. How so? It’s producing positive EVA momentum, which measures the change in “economic value added” (essentially, after-tax operating profit after deducting capital costs) divided by sales. In 2011, 99 Cents’ EVA momentum was 1%, based on 2010 revenue of $5.5 billion and EVA that improved from 2010’s $17 million to 2011’s $25 million, using a 7% weighted average cost of capital.

Here are two reasons to avoid it:

High valuation. 99 Cents trades at a price/earnings-to-growth ratio of 1.65 (1.0 is considered fairly valued) — a P/E of 19.3 on earnings forecast to grow 11.7%, to $1.26, in fiscal 2013 — and is expected to grow 9.3% in fiscal 2012.

Mediocre earnings reports. 99 Cents has been able to beat analysts’ expectations in only two of its past five earnings reports and has missed expectations by more than 7% in the last two reports.

If Apollo buys 99 Cents, the stock will rise another 5% to 10% from its current level. If not, it should plunge and stay in stock purgatory until it can accelerate its earnings growth.